Quora is one of the most underutilized marketing platforms. With 40 million users and more than 300 million questions, it is one of the top social networking sites which is frequently used by thought leaders.

Type a question related to your industry on Google, and the chances are that the first few search results would be Quora answers. For smart marketers, this the most important real estate on search engines. They know that optimizing their site or blog for such questions would be a gigantic task with no guarantee of results in the near future.

Thus, it makes sense to utilize Quora to your advantage. With a sound Quora strategy, you can generate hundreds of leads per month, establish thought leadership, generate organic views, build a massive following, grow your online community and even get featured in top international publications like INC, Forbes, TIME, etc.

However, to achieve these goals you need to have an excellent strategy to identify the right questions, answering them appropriately, build a massive following and develop an active online community.

Here are six strategies that I have learned from the top Quora Authors and which has proved useful for generating a lot of leads for my company.

Note that the techniques mentioned here applicable for a personal profile on Quora as the company will be represented by a writer, a marketer or its representative on the platform. Since the representative spends most of their time in answering the relevant questions, they must have excellent writing skills to boost credibility and return on investments.

Write an effective Bio

An excellent bio is the hygiene factor to be more efficient on Quora. A poorly written bio may be okay for a casual Quora writer who takes it as a hobby. However, if you want to generate business value from Quora, then you need to have a great bio. Otherwise, you may invest significant time in writing hundreds of answers without getting a single lead.

For beginners, the bio must have the following:

A clearly defined offer

Social Recognition or validation

A compelling picture

Link to most viewed Quora answers or other content

I have followed Josh Fechter closely on Quora. Check the following image to see how he has organized his Quora bio. Check out the way he has highlighted his company, Autopilot, without being too salesy.

Your author’s profile is a very critical real estate for your business. Thus, organize your bio in the way which boosts your organization’s offerings with a link back to your website. As you answer more questions, your follower base, as well as the profile views, will increase. This results in a massive organic and relevant traffic to your website.

You can also see the bio of top authors in your industry and learn from them to make a great bio for yourself. Remember, that a well-written bio will work hard for you and help you get the maximum out of your efforts on Quora.

Focus on metric that matter

Many users write questions related to lifestyle and politics to get more views. However, that will not help your cause. Like other platforms, you need to target a particular niche on Quora to get results.

Else, you will get a lot of irrelevant views and visits. Thus, search for your industry related keywords and answer questions only related to that. If you want to target several niches, then start with any one and then move on to others.

Develop a strategy and stick to it

Many marketers make a mistake by answering questions randomly. In the beginning, they may answer a lot of questions, and they suddenly disappear from Quora. To be successful on Quora, you need to develop a strategy on the type of questions you need to answer, the style of your content and how much time you can devote.

Like an editorial calendar for your blog, you also need to develop a schedule for Quora as well. Once you formulate a strategy, stick to it for at least three months. For instance, I bookmark the relevant questions and answer them on every Monday morning.

What type of questions to answer?

Your success on Quora boils down to the number of views and upvotes your answers get. Both of these factors, views as well as upvotes, depend on the selection of questions and the quality of your reply. Selection of a question is very crucial, as irrespective of the quality of your answer you will not get views for poorly selected questions.

Many observers have suggested that a question that has 7:1 ratio of followers to the number of answers written is a great question to answer. In my experience even if this ratio is 5:1, it makes a good question. Also, if a question has a lot of bad or self-promotional answers or it has an emotional appeal, then it is a great choice.

Use Images and Links to relevant content

Use of images and relevant links can increase the views and upvotes by almost 94% for any answer. If you can relate your answer to a famous or controversial celebrity, then use their images in the answer.

It is bound to propel the number of views and comments. Avoid using unrelated or self-promotional links as Quora users are very quick to react, and it may end up hurting your brand image.

Make friends with Controversy

The beauty of Quora is that its users love original and creative answers. You don’t need to conform to social standards. Thus, be authentic while writing the content.

Make friends with controversy and use it whenever you can, to drive your point home. It improves activity on your profile and may help you in getting ranked among the most viewed authors.

If you want to be the best – learn from the best

Put your personality in the content that you write on Quora and develop a unique style. Quora is much more than just writing answers. You can build a huge community and massive following.

To begin with, choose your niche and find the top writers in that niche. Follow them as well as the topics they follow. Engage with their answers and tag them in your content.

Bookmark the questions they answer and start observing a pattern. You will get an idea of how they are selecting the questions. Use the same principle to shortlist a few questions. Bookmark them and answer them as per your editorial schedule.

Once you get started in a particular direction, you will see a lot of traffic coming your way. Fine tune your strategy to improve the performance and keep moving on. It is time to get your hands dirty now.

Write a guest post

About the author

Tom Geen is a marketing professional who has more than 5 years experience developing and executing marketing strategies and tactics, with a focus on digital marketing. At the moment Tom is a CMO at Writers Per Hours.